1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image communication apparatus and an image communication method.
2. Background Information
In the apparatus on the receiving side such as a personal computer etc., that receives E-mail to read, all received E-mail data is stored to a secondary storage device, which the apparatus has, regardless of the apparatus on the sender side and the content, and the user confirms the content, thereafter printing, displaying (hereinafter referred to as outputting) data. In this case, the user reads the contents of error mail and delivery status notification mail without distinguishing them from normal E-mail so as to make a distinction therebetween.
While, there has been in practical use Internet facsimile apparatus (hereinafter referred to as IFAX) that performs data transmission and reception over the Internet using E-mail as disclosed in, for example, Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No, 8-242326 and its corresponding U.S. Pat. No. 5,881,233.
The IFAX converts binary image data to text data format and appends it to E-mail to transmit. Then, if there is an appending file in E-mail, the receiving side decompresses it and prints out it. Namely, instead of outputting received data after the user reads the data, arrived data is sequentially printed out and the user reads the printed data. This feature is similar to that of the normal facsimile, e.g. G3 facsimile.
In conventional IFAX, all of header information, document information, and image data included in the received data are printed out without making a distinction among kinds of received data. However, there is a case in which data having no value for printing is included depending on the kind of E-mail.
For example, in a case where received mail data is error mail, image data remains as it is converted to the text format. Then, if error mail is printed out without distinguishing it from normal E-mail, the large amount of information, which is incomprehensible and unnecessary to the receiver, is printed out. As a result, the user cannot identify the original document and this will result in a waste of resources such as recording paper.
The applicant of the present invention has proposed an error mail discriminating method in Unexamined Japanese Patent Publication No. 11-15755, its corresponding U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/099,528 and its corresponding EP 0 923 034 A1. Specifically, error mail is accompanied with all of the contents of E-mail (hereinafter referred to as original mail) transmitted by the sender. The header of this original message always contains a fixed massage such as “X-mailer: Internet FAX” (hereinafter referred to as “header fixed message”). In addition, document information of the body always includes a message such as “this mail accompanied image data of ITFF-format” (hereinafter referred to as “document fixed message). Moreover, the first portion of text-format image data of the body always includes a fixed code (hereinafter referred to as “image data fixed coded”) such as “SUkq . . . ”
Therefore, the error mail body contains error-related information, original message header and error mail body. This also includes a header fixed message, document fixed message, and image data fixed code.
IFAX disclosed by the above-mentioned Publications collates the header fixed message, document fixed message and image data fixed code, respectively, and if all of them agree, it judges that the received mail data is error mail.
Though a mail server generates error mail, there is a kind of the mail server that rewrites the content of original message. More specifically, the mail server rewrites a boundary that indicates a divider for mail data structure. The rewriting of boundary has a problem in which identification of error mail cannot be performed correctly by the conventional method.
The following will explain the principle. The header defines the boundary. For example, “−+−+MGCS−+−+” is defined as a boundary. Then, in according to this definition, “−+−+MGCS−+−+” is placed at the boundary between the respective portions (header, error-related information, and the like) so as to divide the structure of each portion. Then, a certain server performs processing for rewriting this “−+−+MGCS−+−+” to another one at an error mail generating time. In this processing, processing for rewriting one in which “−+−+MGCS−+−+” is written at the original message is carried out as well as the header. The reason why this rewrite processing is performed is unclear, but the server that carries out such processing exists resultantly.
In the prior art, in the case of processing error mail generated by this server, the IFAX judges that the mail is one that is transmitted by itself when the IFAX checks on the boundary at the original message of received error mail and this boundary is the same as the self boundary. However, since the boundary is rewritten, it is judged that this is not the data has been transmitted by the IFAX, so that determination of error mail cannot be correctly carried out.
If such a mistake occurs, error mail is printed out without distinguishing it from normal E-mail and the large amount of information, which is incomprehensible and unnecessary to the receiver, is printed out. As a result, the user cannot identify the original document and this will result in a waste of resources such as recording paper.